We now know that newly minted Education Minister Gordon Dirks will stand as a candidate in Calgary-Elbow, and we now also know that voters there will decide on Oct. 27 whom they shall send to represent them in the legislature.

As Winter Olympic host cities, Calgary (1988) and Salt Lake City (2002) share much in common.
Both cities are young — Calgary’s median age is 36, while Salt Lake City’s (SLC) is 30 — both have a population base of just over one million people, both are gateways to mountain recreational playgrounds and have signature international festivals (Stampede vs. Sundance Film Festival). At the same time, the DNA of each city is very different.

Morris Ertman saves the good scripts for himself. The longtime artistic director of Rosebud may be an old soul who sees the big picture on most issues, but when he gets his hands on a nuanced, well-written script, like Doubt: A Parable, by a Pulitzer Prize (and Academy Award) winning playwright John Patrick Shanley, he won’t let go.

In a Calgary community where many parents are barely getting by and their children are finding themselves getting into trouble, police and community groups hope to improve the lives of young people with a new support system at school. Government and social agencies have collaborated to provide students at Patrick Airlie School and Holy Trinity School in Forest Lawn with full-time phys-ed teachers and psychologists, after-school programs, better nutrition and positive interactions with police, among other help.

VATICAN CITY - Members of Pope Francis' sexual abuse advisory board said Saturday they will develop "clear and effective" protocols to hold bishops and other church authorities accountable if they fail to report suspected abuse or protect children from pedophile priests.

A Mexican woman desperate to remain in Canada hung herself in the Canada Border Services Agency holding cells of Vancouver International Airport rather than face deportation. Lucia Vega Jimenez, 42, used a shower curtain to strangle herself on Dec. 20, a day after being placed in the stark holding facility. She died eight days later at Mount St. Joseph’s Hospital in Vancouver.

Six-month-old Angus Smith is a devout churchgoer. He doesn’t know it yet, but as a young, male, Protestant in 2013, he is in the minority. Angus watched proceedings at Grace Presbyterian Church’s Christmas Eve service calmly from his baby seat, rested on a pew next to his mom, Kathryn.

Archbishop Justin Welby’s choice of the word “martyrs” to describe the 85 Pakistani Christians killed when their church in Peshawar was targeted by suicide bombers has raised eyebrows. It is the sort of language avoided nowadays in the secular, sceptical West, with its taken-for-granted religious freedoms, in case it makes people feel uncomfortable.

On a recent day at Rexall Place, Ryan Smyth and a handful of his teammates finished practice, showered and made their way from the Edmonton Oilers’ dressing room to the Gold Club located under the building’s lower bowl.

Assigned by Maclean’s to photograph Canada’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet in Rome, and on a mission to document his own ongoing story about faith, a Calgary photojournalist stumbles upon two fellow citizens with a primo view of a historic event in St. Peter’s Square.